March 8, 2018 — A quiet reboot

One reason why the number of scholastic girls’ lacrosse teams has caught up and surpassed the number of field hockey teams like a dragster passing a Model T is the ground game that U.S. Lacrosse has perfected over the years, holding clinics in places near and far, and repeating them as needed until the sport is adopted in local school systems.

USA Field Hockey had a number of splashy initiatives in the last decade with names such as You Go Girl and Stick Starz, which have seemingly not moved the needle in terms of the popularity of the sport in non-traditional areas.

But in the last few weeks, this space has gotten wind of some growth initiatives of some promise. This winter, there has been an indoor field hockey program, supplemented with USA Field Hockey-branded equipment, taking place in Nashville, Tenn.

And in a couple of weekends, there are going to be a series of clinics surrounding the USA Field Hockey Summit in Baltimore.

These aren’t the kinds of splashy promotions which raise expectations — sometimes unreasonable and unhealthy ones. Instead, these are grass-roots initiatives which are intended to get some of the finest coaches and players in the American field hockey universe to get involved in a meaningful way in non-traditional communities.

There is still a long way to go. Think of this: the three American states with the most high school field hockey teams are Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. The three main high schools in their respective state capitals — Trenton (N.J.) Central, Harrisburg (Pa.), and Albany (N.Y.) do not have field hockey. (Mind you, there is the case of Harrisburg Susquehanna (Pa.), which does have the game, but the sending area is Susquehanna Township, a pi-shaped* area that surrounds the Harrisburg city center.)

For the very survival of the sport as a going concern, it’s time to finally break through the socioeconomic barriers that have held up the development of the sport and its athletes. It was the same when this website was started in 1998, and it’s disheartening to see the lack of progress.